


Gallantry

by Mithen



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-03
Updated: 2010-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Riddler finds Harley Quinn...discombobulating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gallantry

Harley slings the mallet back over her shoulder with a jaunty air. "Really, Eddie, you should be more careful," she points out.

The thug on the warehouse floor may be dead or alive; considering he had been about to add a great deal of lead-based ventilation to Eddie's suit, Eddie doesn't much care which. Schroedinger's Mook--if they don't check, it remains unresolved.

But when he thinks of it that way he realizes that just makes it a riddle, and then he has to know the answer. He bends over the body as Harley makes a small annoyed sound. There's a weak pulse under his fingers. "Thank goodness," he says without thinking.

"What do you care?" Harley asks, honest curiosity in her voice.

"It's better not to be lethal, Harleen." He knows he sounds condescending, but it's safer than revealing how relieved he is. "Dead bodies tend to equal Batman tends to equal Arkham." Lecturing keeps him from showing how unpleasant he finds the idea of Harley in Arkham again.

"Arkham ain't so bad," says Harley cheerfully, and Eddie supresses a shudder.

"Perhaps not for one of your self-evident physical strength," he says. Killer Croc and Victor Zsasz had never been notably impressed by riddles, in his experience. "For those of us with less skill in that area..."

Harley makes a sympathetic noise, then puts one arm around him and hugs him impulsively. "If we ever end up in Arkham together, Eddie, I'll keep you safe. I promise." She kisses him on the cheek. "I wouldn't let anyone hurt my friends!"

His cheek is burning. He wonders if she's left a black kiss-shaped mark on his face. He wants, with a painful savagery that surprises him, to touch her face, to get white greasepaint on his fingers, to leave white streaks down her neck, and lower. To draw pale curlicues, question marks on her skin.

He clears his throat instead. "I appreciate that," he says. "Shall we leave before someone comes to check on our erstwhile friend?"

At the door, without thinking, he opens it for her. She raises one eyebrow at him: not offended, merely amused. "Who says chivalry is dead?" she asks the air.

He whisks off his bowler as she goes through the door and bows deeply. "Not I, my checkered champion, my droll defender, my heartened laser."

She looks confused at the last one, then laughs, shaking her head. She knows he tends to speak in anagrams but she's never patient enough to figure them out. Perhaps it's just as well. "You're cute, Eddie."

She kisses his other cheek.


End file.
